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Random talk about app development
It’s that time of year again—September, which means a new iPhone release!
I’ve just upgraded my old phone to the iPhone 16 Pro, and I’m excited to put it to the test. I’ll be making sure everything works smoothly with iOS 18 and future updates.
That’s all for now—thanks for reading!
Update 5 Oct 2024
All apps are iOS 18 ready.
This quarter was full of actions.
New iOS has just been released. It’s a tradition that every major iOS version update will have an issue with the existing app. Luckily this one was one of the smoothest OS updates ever.
Here is what happened so far:
DistanceCalculator and GeoLoger are now available for subscription. And we saw one of you purchased the sub! Thank you so much! We are really grateful and can not thank you enough!
We made visual updates for some apps. It’s very subtle, but we think it’s awesome to have!
And a bad news
BlastSim for iOS was initially our side project we wrote while I was learning iOS app development, and taught us a lot. It went viral so many times, in online media and recently on TikTok.
We are unable to push a further update because of an issue with the app reviewing process. We had a similar issue way back in 2017 with BlastMap. So we built BlastSim to give more focus on the information aspect. We are not surprised to see that BlastSim will eventually suffer a similar fate.
We’ve done several submissions to hopefully make it comply with the guidelines, but it still has not passed a review. And after three months, we have given a deadline that the app will be removed from the app store forever.
It is sad for us to have to wind down the app after seven long years.
Starting mid-December, the app will no longer be available for download. So while the app is available, one for free if you can!
For those who already have the app on their device, The app should run smoothly on iOS 17 without a problem without any app updates. However, we have no guarantee that future updates will continue to be working.
The Android version will live on, so we suggest everyone who wishes to use the app in the future download the Android version instead. Or use a web-app version from other developers which we think they have done better than us.
We might work on a completely new app. We are always thinking about building a multi-tool map that does everything.
Edit Oct 2, 2023: We made a lot more updates. Please end at the end of this blog post
Follow-up to the previous post, here’s what we have done so far in the past two days.
Health checkup to make sure there’s no crash during usage. We identify crashes from What3words API issue.
Some coordinates are not working properly. Eg. MGRS, QTH.
All of these issues have been fixed
And we introducing a new feature borrowed from Coordaintes 8.0 for iOS
Big Compass with heading value
Speedometer with direction bearing.
We are looking to add more features soon, but we will be awaiting more feedback through the Contact Us page before we proceed.
Oct 2, 2023
Look like we didn’t want to wait and simply continue working on the app!
We are delighted to tell you that the app is now fully translated into every language without any missing translations.
And it’s now possible to import a photo and get its coordinates value just like one in the iOS version
We are delighted to introduce a significant update for the Coordinates app on iOS - Version 8.0, featuring these exciting new highlights:
As our apps become more feature-rich, maintaining the app's simplicity has become increasingly challenging. Fortunately, we've devised a solution. Instead of requiring users to navigate deep into the app to execute common tasks, we have streamlined the organization of these tasks, making them easily accessible and user-friendly.
To access the menu, please press this icon.
This approach enables us to keep expanding our feature set, including those that may not be frequently used, such as the Transform Coordinates menu, all while preventing clutter on the main screen, especially on smaller devices.
Furthermore, some features are better suited as external applications, and we have thoughtfully included links to these apps as well!
Inside our app, we've incorporated a speedometer feature that provides real-time information on speed, course direction, and their corresponding accuracy levels.
We have enhanced the compass by adding more information, including the heading to the north and the selected pin. You can now customize the visibility of the compass through options in the settings menu.
This wraps up version 8.0, but more exciting features are on the horizon. Please don't hesitate to suggest ideas via the contact form.
We have always been aware of Android lagging behind in terms of development. Our goal is to bring it on par with the iOS version someday.
However, we have noticed that we receive fewer messages through our form regarding the Android version. While we receive numerous messages from iOS users, it helps us prioritize our efforts. So, if you wish to see more features and updates for Android, please send us a message to let us know you're out there!
Since we introduced numerous updates for iOS in September, we will temporarily shift our focus away from the iOS version. Starting this October, we will finally be able to dedicate more attention to the Android version.
Our primary focus will be resolving the persistent crash issues in the Android version. Afterward, we will gradually introduce the same features from iOS to the Android version.
Thank you for reading, and we wish you a pleasant Q4.
Hello,
iOS 17 is finally here. And all of our apps went through the update smoothly without issue. We just recently released a minor update for every single app just for it too.
With Q3 coming to an end, we need more time to work on the promised feature. We read many of the emails sent to our mailbox, We do notice some confusion on each app's capabilities. We will soon. release a better short explanation for every app on our website soon. So for Q4, our big plan is to do a website upgrade.
Also, we decided to not continue working on the Apple Watch yet as we don’t see much demand for it.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day!
Hello again,
Despite not having many updates, we finished most of what we promised in the Q1 update.
We finished re-writing Elevation instructions for iOS in PDF format.
Slope feature for Elevation iOS app
What we will do next for Q3 2023
Due to many requests, we will implement a paid feature to DistanceCalculator and Geologger app.
Hopefully, we will be able to rework on Apple Watch version of all apps.
Unfortunately, we decided to shut down our AIPainter app due to operating costs.
Please email us for feature requests and suggestions so that we can do it asap.
Hello, it's been a while since our last update. We have noticed the emerging technology of AI, especially ChatGPT, which we believe is a huge disruption to every sector. However, at the same time, there are a lot of opportunities possible from it. We will find a way to use this technology to improve our product pipeline in the future.
We have also created our first app with its first prototype design by ChatGPT called AIPainter.
Here is what we plan to do next within Q2:
We will focus our efforts on the Elevation app and add more features to its app.
We will complete the documentation rewrite for the Elevation app.
We plan to launch another AI-inspired app.
For our 2023 roadmap, we are hoping to launch a desktop version of certain apps. However, we will need to seriously think about its revenue model first to make it sustainable for us and provide the best experience for our users.
Thank you for reading.
Hello everyone,
I would like to share a story.
With the help of AI, I finally managed to write a new experimental app from scratch plus ten languages within two weeks.
Download link: https://linktr.ee/aipainter
I had an idea of doing apps with AI but I have no idea how to start. Luckily, last year there was a tool called Stable Diffusion that utilized computing power from graphic cards to construct images generated by an AI.
This is ideal because our company has quite a size of GPU mining equipment laying around untouched due to a crash in cryptocurrency prices.
So here is the plan for the simple app:
Make a frontend app to connect to the Stable Diffusion server and make it easy to use as possible.
Let’s get started
For this task, I use ChatGPT to construct a basic working code for my app. Unsurprisingly, it’s not working out of the box. But the most important thing I got from here is I finally managed to have some idea of how to start building the app.
It took less than a day for my first working prototype, which really encourage me to keep working on the app. It still takes another week for polishing though.
I used Stable Diffusion to suggest app icons. These are a few of them. I chose the first one and cropped it a little to make it stands out more
Unfortunately, AI didn’t have much help here so I still have to do it manually.
I’m using my existing mining rig which runs on multiple RTX3080s, I had to upgrade RAM and CPU to make it respond faster. Still, I think it might probably be much more economical than renting GPU-enabled VPS.
This is where AI shines a lot. No explanation needed
Instead of taking me hours of writing, now took me seconds.
Unfortunately, this is manual labor since I’m using Photoshop to design all screenshots for all ten languages.
Since I’m using Google Translate, so no AI works here.
If you want to try the app, here is the link.
Here is a list of tasks I wrote previously. Parts that AI was involved in are highlighted in bold.
Write a working app - 50% Prototype only
Create app icon - 100%
Working on UI
Building a server
Write legal texts - 100%
Write store descriptions - 100%
Screenshots
Localization
I think AI saved me more than a week of work.
Here is what I think how AI is useful for app production
Speed up development time, don’t need for extra labor for the repetitive task.
Anything to do with human language writing
Best for searching code snippets or writing basic functions. 80% of the time could replace a few search results on Google or stack overflow.
2023 is the year of AI, we need to adapt to prepare for any disruption.
Happy New Year 2023!
I hope you all have had a great new year so far.
I’m here today to share some good news. Coordinates iOS app finally has PDF documentation which included all updates I posted in many blog posts, now all in one place.
The First version has 107 pages in total.
You can find the download link here - Coordinates Instruction
PDF Documentation for Android version will come later this month.
Have a great day!
I just pushed the final 2022 updates to all apps just in time before Christmas. I expect those updates will be the last before the end of 2022.
So far here is what happened to our apps in 2022
We fix Blastsim and Elevation data source
We resurrected Android apps. Many missing Coordinates Android app features were added, and now at least 90% of an iOS counterpart.
Significant feature updates to Coordinates iOS version
Subscription for Coordinates Android
What’s next?
The Android version will soon have an in-app subscription just like the iOS version, hopefully, we will be able to launch the first app sometime during January 2023.
We said we would finish it during January 2023, but we managed to finish working on it much more early than expected! Please update the app to version 4.5.0 to see the menu!
We kept subscription pricing under the same USD values. Note that pricing may be a bit slightly different from the iOS version depending on the region due to Google and Apple having different Tax/Vat policies. Unfortunately, we have no control over that.
The coordinates app is always our flagship app. We will make it even better. We aim to add even more features to make it comparable to some professional applications available in the market. If you have any ideas, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We would like to take a moment to say thank you to all of our users who have used our apps. Your support and feedback have been invaluable to us, and we are grateful for the opportunity to serve you. In fact, many of the updates and improvements we have made to our apps are directly based on suggestions from users like you.
We encourage everyone to continue sending us your ideas and suggestions for how our apps can be improved. By working together, we can make our apps even better and more useful for everyone.
As we approach the end of the year, we would also like to wish you all a happy and prosperous 2023. We hope that the new year brings you joy, success, and many more opportunities to use and enjoy our apps.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to continuing to serve you in the new year.
Best wishes, Mapnitude Co., Ltd.
